In a few days we may get a look at the much ballyhooed memo written by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, led by Devin Nunes, regarding alleged FISA abuse leading to spying on the Trump campaign and the role of the Steele Dossier in justifying that spying on a presidential candidate.

Very soon we may also see a report by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz into the DOJ/FBI handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

What I expect those reports to show is a deep politicization of the highest levels of both DOJ and FBI.

As to the Steele dossier, the House Intel memo may or may not delve into whether it was a Russian intelligence set-up. It certainly would be consistent with Russian disinformation practices according to a former CIA officer in an Op-ed in The Wall Street Journal,The Steele Dossier Fits the Kremlin Playbook:

When the “Steele dossier” was first published a year ago, it looked like a bombshell. The document, drawn up by the British ex-spy Christopher Steele, contained salacious allegations against President Trump and suggested that Russia had helped him win the 2016 election. No one has been able to corroborate its charges, but Democrats continue to see the dossier as a road map for impeaching Mr. Trump. Republicans, on the other hand, point out that it was created as opposition research, leading them to see it as an elaborate partisan ploy.

There is a third possibility, namely that the dossier was part of a Russian espionage disinformation plot targeting both parties and America’s political process. This is what seems most likely to me, having spent much of my 30-year government career, including with the CIA, observing Soviet and then Russian intelligence operations. If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that Vladimir Putin continues in the Soviet tradition of using disinformation and espionage as foreign-policy tools….

The pattern of such Russian operations is to sprinkle false information, designed to degrade the enemy’s social and political infrastructure, among true statements that enhance the veracity of the overall report….

If this turns out to be the case, and I believe it will, that means that for the past 18 months the American people have been manipulated by useful idiots for the Russian intelligence operation — the media, Democrats and #NeverTrump Republicans who have relentlessly spread the allegations of the Steele dossier, and used it to justify an attack on the most basic foundations of our Republic.

The people screaming the loudest about Russia collusion were in fact doing the Russians bidding in sowing chaos.

The dossier and gossip generated by it was the foundation of the Russia collusion conspiracy theories that led to attempts to intimidate Electors into changing their Electoral College votes. As I’ve said many times before, that was a defining moment for me that confirmed that #TheResistance was dangerous beyond our normal and sometimes vitriolic politics. I wrote about it in our last anniversary post, Legal Insurrection is 9 years old, and filled with dread:

Last year I noted that while it was a difficult year personally, I was optimistic. That’s been one of my roles over the years, keeping hope alive. But there’s no pep talk this year. Just dread.

The attempts to unwind the 2016 presidential election have changed everything.

I’ve written before how the attempts to intimidate the Electoral College electors into changing their votes was a game changer for me. That went beyond politics into attempted coup territory. It wasn’t just a matter of opposing Trump or Trump policies, which is legitimate, but an attempt to nullify an election. Criticize Trump all you want, I certainly did during the primaries, but respect the vote. If you don’t respect the vote, then you are not just political opposition, you are a danger to our system.

There has been a slow motion coup underway, an attempt to so delegitimize the election outcome and elected-president as to undermine our electoral system. It may have been done by the Russians, but not in the way portrayed in the media.

If the House Intel Memo and Inspector General reports reveal what I expect them to reveal, then there needs to be a house cleaning at the upper levels of DOJ/FBI, and the media-Democrat-#NeverTrump Republican useful idiots need to be exposed as such.

Agreed, there are limits to the power of the alt-left media to spin its way to victory. The evidence of this limit is the fact that Hillary is not president.

A certain momentum is building, and it isn’t favorable to the Dems, or DoJ/FBI, illustrated by panicked interviews, desperate redirects and Dem denials all weekend, and The Memo hasn’t even been released yet.

Sara Carter is reporting that agents have accused McCabe of pressuring them to change the information on their FBI witness interrogation forms. If true, this will be the greatest level of corruption ever demonstrated at the top of the FBI, surpassing even their coverups for Whitey Bulger. This is perjury, and suborning of perjury.

Carter says that this is the evidence that was shown to Wray just yesterday, leading to McCabe’s immediate removal from his position. If Sara Carter is correct, McCabe could be charged with crimes leading to 20 years in a federal prison.

Also, it would be a mistake for our side to seek some kind of vindication in the alt-left media as a sign of victory. We will achieve many victories but none of them will ever be portrayed as such in the media because they have their precious Narrative to protect.

“there needs to be a house cleaning at the upper levels of DOJ/FBI”
******
Is the memo derived from DOJ/FBI documents that Nunes received in early Jan. 2018 or from information that he saw when he review documents at the Executive office Building in March 2017? If from the DOJ/FBI documents then Dems. will spin a “few bad apples being dealt with”; if from summaries of Presidential Daily Briefs reviewed in March, 2017, then the Schiff is going to hit the fan; Obama had been read into the “spying”.

Nunes/staff most likely wrote memo, however, if some/most of the memo material is from PDBs that he reviewed in March 2017, then the corruption is tied directly to the Obama WH. IIRC, it was after Nunes read the PDB at the Eisenhower office bldg. that the Dems filed an ethics complaint and side lined him for nine months.

Massive criminality and attempting to overthrow the US government deserves more than housecleaning.

Indict all the conspirators for every possible federal crime and their leaders for treason. Let the media and democrats scream – they scream no matter what President Trump does.

If nothing more than a housecleaning takes place (with all the uncharged criminals living well off government pensions, book deals and high paying jobs in big law firms or as lobbyists) then they win and will keep doing this as long as it takes to bring down the administration.

I have no information on the claim’s veracity, but your link didn’t lend any confidence, since the FR ad that happened to come up with it was a blatant lie. This is the ad text: Not that it makes any difference to the law, but most of these illegal “DACA” aliens were NOT brought in “through no fault of their own” as the lying democrats falsely allege. They were lured in by Obama’s illegal democrat voter recruiting campaign aka his unconstitutional DACA executive order. This is of course a lie, since by definition they came to the USA before the order, and indeed before anyone took 0bama seriously as a 2008 presidential candidate.

I’ve seen ads in many places that don’t seem to go with the websites they’re on. An ad doesn’t mean anything except that someone paid money to advertise . But I found this after a couple minutes searching:

” Carter: What we know tonight is that FBI Director Christopher Wray went Sunday and reviewed the four-page FISA memo. The very next day, Andrew McCabe was asked to resign. Remember Sean, he was planning on resigning in March – that already came out in December. This time they asked him to go right away. You’re not coming into the office. I’ve heard reports he didn’t even come in for the morning meeting – that he didn’t show up.

Hannity: A source of mine told me tonight that when Wray read this, it shocked him to his core.

Sara Carter: Shocked him to his core, and not only that, the Inspector General’s report – I have been told tonight by a number of sources, there’s indicators right now that McCabe may have asked FBI agents to actually change their 302’s – those are their interviews with witnesses. So basically every time an FBI agent interviews a witness, they have to go back and file a report.

Hannity: Changes? So that would be obstruction of justice?

Carter: Exactly. This is something the Inspector General is investigating. If this is true and not alleged, McCabe will be fired. I heard they are considering firing him within the next few days if this turns out to be true. “

What *possible* criminal behavior could come out of this. I mean it’s not like a sitting President used the FBI Counterintelligence section to spy on a candidate for the other party, using his own party’s mechanisms to purchase fictional stories from Russian sources and then use these bits of fiction to ‘justify’ the spying.

You can know, suspect, and/or believe whatever you want, but in our justice system it isn’t about any of those things, hell it isn’t even about the truth. It is all about what can be proven. My guess is that Obama and his handlers would make sure he was insulated.

Where’s the wrongdoing there? He received an email and replied to it. How does that show he knew about her private server? Do you pay attention to the email address of every person you correspond with? (OK, I do, but most people wouldn’t have a clue. Especially if they use an email client like Outlook that hides the address and just displays the name.)

There is no hard evidence and I seriously doubt there ever will be. What we *do* have is a case where the FBI agency heads along with other VIPs knew exactly what the boss wanted and did not say it out loud, somewhat like Thomas Becket’s end result.

It would take a special brand of stupid to craft a Presidential memo with phrasing in it like “The FBI is to take all possible steps to minimize any criminal prosecutions against Hillary or her campaign staff, while making sure to collect as much real or imaginary dirt on Trump as they can, with hopes that he is defeated in the election, or if he wins, impeached before serving his term.”

What most likely *did* happen was staff meetings where one Important Staffer would say something like “It sure seems like Trump and his campaign had a lot of Russian contacts. It would be a shame for him if they had criminal connections.” Then a Second Important Staffer would nod obediently before going to his boss and repeating.

Trust me. In any large governmental organization, there are Things That Are Written Down, and Things That Are Never Put On Paper/Email/IM/etc… Where the criminals get caught is when the second category of things wind up being used as the first category of things, such as the email from Hillary telling a staffer to make sure the Secret headers were stripped off documents before being sent to her. Oops!

What would be the threshold for a loyal true-blue Progressive or Never-Trumper to acknowledge (if) he or she were wrong? I do not see it mattering. We usually wind up with world of thirds…. a third are for, a third against and a third do not care…. in the long run. There is plenty of time to spin this away should our best (really worst) hunches are correct. The Dems will still go for a pyrrhic victory if they can. This is the mindset of the ’60s where anything is better than what they saw we had…. anything. The Deep State are heros to them. No harm is too great. No death spiral to deep that they can not pull out of it. Hubris meet ground.

No idea what would sway a “Progressive”, but as a NeverTrumper I can’t see any of this swaying me, because it’s completely irrelevant to his fitness for office. I never took these accusations into account in the first place, not only because there was never anything like evidence for them, but mostly because it wouldn’t bother me if they were true. My opposition to Trump has nothing to do with this whole non-scandal, so it can’t be changed by the exposure of its origins.

I’ve known for more than two decades that Hillary Clinton is a serial criminal, that the Democratic Party thumbs its nose at the law, and that the FBI and CIA are riddled with Democrats; if their misdeeds are finally exposed it will be a wonderful thing, and if some of them see prison time even better. I have no time for the Democratic Party or any of its candidates. In more than 30 years, I have only ever voted for one Democrat. But no amount of information about Democrat misdeeds does anything to improve Donald Trump’s fitness for office.

You are right. These are two issues but they do intersect. The question is what one would do to carry out their beliefs on the issue of Trump’s fitness. I see the Trump presidency as a setback to the Progs but mostly reversible. I see the Left’s control as having mainly irreversible consequences. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but Nero did a good job of reducing it in a night.

Not ready to throw the towel in on Sessions. I actually think he is key to helping this all come together. If anyone knows how Washington works and how to attack it he does.

That appears to be the my reads of those “in the know”. They keep telling me to wait and see. Sessions is the only one that stayed loyal to Trump during the elections so I think he has been in the know for a long time.

Yep, agree, that is probably going to be the case. Clinton will skate. Look at Kennedy and LBJ. We still don’t have the full story there. I believe the IG’s ability to move within the DOJ in a direct result of Session.

Getting Clinton is noise, getting the deep state is critical to making sure the communist elites (Uniparty) does not control our government and our lives.

As well as Sesson’s support of Trump, Steve Miller came with the deal. Do you believe Miller should go? I could careless to the now impenitent Costo isle 5 book signing Cameo personality versa an embedded deep state.

I think he’s a plant for the Deep State. Considering his complete lack of action up to this point and his retarded recusal of himself from the Russia investigation (which anyone could see would give control of the process to the bureaucrats), I would say there’s a lot more evidence on my side than yours.

All you have is some naïve hope that one day he’ll do something.
Sucker.

Ok, let’s say the Memo does show this was a Russian operation and that Democrats have been pushing it. Doesn’t that mean that Meuller should shift the focus of his investigation. Also, if he had this information then shouldn’t he have already shifted the focus of his investigation, I mean this would be actual Russia getting involved in the election process.

Your assumption is the Mueller investigation is actually looking for Russian collusion and not just being used as a way of getting Trump out of the White House.

In a sane world Mueller would have come back months ago clearing Trump of collusion and then going after Democrats like a rabid dog. Sadly liberals do not live in a sane world and we are where we are by design (by democrats).

Optimistic? Maybe, it just that I think any kind of exposure is moving in the right direction. Eventually it will be up to all the good men and women in the legal profession to duke this mess out. Good luck y’all. Not being sarcastic, I think that will be a very important part of all this, crucial in fact. Maybe that is where I am optimistic.

Well…
You are in error as you quoted an ” Expert”
Look, really , it was just a case of a pack of stupid conspiring Democrats.
Pure and simple.
They thought they could get away with it, so they tried it.
End of story.

I think you give the Russians too much credit. They are, and always have been, sowing seeds of discord to their benefit. This is not new.

Nope. It is the communist left with their handmaidens, the nevertrumpers, that are responsible. The corrupt cabal at the top of our government knew exactly what they were doing. They knew it was all based upon layers of lies.

People are allowing themselves to concentrate on the anti-Trump activities in the DOJ and FBI and ignoring the rest of the picture. This is understandable, as even media organs such as Fox are not connecting the dots.

This activity stretches back to, at least, 2010. The FISA court was made aware of it by Adm, Rogers in 2016. Reportedly, he had become aware that unmasked US citizens, residing domestically, were being unmasked and included in the Presidential Daily Briefing, which was then being dispensed to a huge number of people, many of whom did not have access to this material under 702. Prior to the inauguration of Donald Trump the identities and particulars of these people was “leaked” to various new outlets, a further violation of 702. As this involved PDBs, this ties the WH, and very probably the President, into this scheme. If this investigation progresses, it could very well result in criminal charges against the upper echelons of the Obama DOJ, FBI, DNI, CIA, and other highly placed government employees who took part in the leaks. It could even involve the former President of the United States, Barack Obama.

The activities of the FBI, in the Trump surveillance, is only the tip of the iceberg.

And somehow the FBI and all the other alphabet agencies can’t figure out who was using the UN ambassador’s access to unmask people, since she has testified under oath it wasn’t her. More than one unmasking a day, on average.

“Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch were unquestionably two of the most corrupt Attorneys General in the history of the United States, that is saying something.

It isn’t even in question that their influence would ramify down into the ranks of the agencies they headed. It would have to. That’s the nature of organizations.”

Agreed to both of those points. So to use a real world example, what was the most important task to focus on after taking John Gotti down? Going after and taking down all of John Gotti’s associates and proteges, obviously.

So that’s what needs to happen now in both the DOJ and FBI. All appointees and any who were promoted since 2012 should be very closely scrutinized, and many demoted or terminated entirely. that’s the logic of the position you laid out.

And a caning in Singapore is something to watch! When I lived in Singapore, back in the early 80’s, there was a section in the Straits Times showing who was getting punished for what , and the time and place, if you wanted to go to the public viewing.

The prisoner is brought in and bent over a wooden trestle. A martial arts expert with a wetted bamboo cane applies the lash to the bared buttuck. Usually a the prisoner passes out. Luckily, a doctor is always on hand to revive the prisoner before the application of the next lash.

Being a never-Trumper today is much like being one of the Copperheads of 1864, that group of Northern politicians who said “Well, of course the Southern Rebellion is bad, and we don’t care for that slavery stuff, but Abraham Lincoln, what a monstrous fool! We have to dump him immediately and sue for peace with the South!”

Gen’l McLellan was their leader. If they had won, the Nation would have been split forever, and slavery would have survived – even though of course they were operating with the “best of motives”.

When you’re in a way, you don’t give aid and comfort to the enemy by putting all of your power into attacking your own side. When you do, you end up like every Copperhead politician did – swept into the dustbin of history, drummed out of office and stripped of any influence for the rest of their lives.

The Electoral College was meant, originalist, to be a body of august serious persons who could and would change their minds! If such was needed. The “binding” of electors is itself an act of bad faith in the abilities of fellow humans: it is an act of defiant malicious mistrust in individuals as serious earnest persons able to judge. State legislators “binding” electors is a perversion of both the old-school law conception what is called agency and also of judgement.

It is dumbing down of expectations of fellow humans and replacing it with process formalities and factional herd management.

While there has been a serious attempt to overthrow the election it has not happened. The electors at the electoral college did their job. Yet, there is a lesson to be learned here and it must carry forward into a new found skepticism of government and cooperation with government agencies and perhaps into the courthouse through the juries that determine guilt of innocence. We have heard that evidence of innocence had been withheld by the govt and the fact that while it is illegal to lie to investigators it is legal for investigators to lie to you. Professor Jacobson’s dread is well founded

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

On what grounds could they have been terminated? What serious misconduct, of a kind that would justify termination, has been proven against either of them? Not suspected, proved? Merely making unprofessional comments to each other, in private text messages, is not even nearly enough.

I woke up with a start this morning and thought about Haiti and the doctor that the Clinton Foundation sponsored to go down there. He complained that there were no medical supplies. He recently stabbed himself in the chest a bunch of times. I thought about the billionaire pharmaceutical couple from Canada, who were big Clinton Donors, but killed themselves upstairs before going the down to the basement to commit murder-suicide.. oh wait, it was murder. I thought about the girl from Meridian, Idaho, who just wanted to help children in Haiti and ending up being super fortunate that Hillary Clinton could set her up with a world-class sex-trafficking attorney. I thought about how Bill recently pointed out the Clinton Foundation did not pay for Chelsea’s wedding with Haiti funds ….

Last night, before bed, I was bemused we were told that Christopher Wray was so blown away by The Memo that he finally “fired” McCabe. Really? How is it possible that he could be blown away by about FISA abuse, or Uranium One! What was he doing at his desk all day? But, based on the comments and facial expressions of those who have seen the memo, I think it IS mind-blowing.

And in Chandra Levy and other missing girls, all the sudden retirements, and much, much, much more…

The housecleaning is already underway. Sharyl Attkisson reported in December that 8 high ranking people at the FBI/DOJ have been fired, demoted, reassigned, or resigned. At least one more has been added since she wrote the link below: Rybicki.

We’ll agree to disagree about whether this House Cleaning should only be at the top of these organizations or whether they should permeate through the entire apparatchik.

There is a legal and moral precedent established at the Nuremberg trials that, that at least here in the West, ‘I was just following orders’ is not a valid evasion of responsibility for crimes. This is a guiding principle I was taught in the military that I have an obligation to evaluate the morality and legality of all orders I’m given. I say we must hold all of our bureaucrats to the same standard, these people hold enormous power over our lives.

Also, there is a question over what the DoJ/FBI actually do to justify this serious threat to our liberties and the enormous cost of these agencies. Can anyone name for me what good things the DoJ or FBI did in 2017? It’s an important question that few people can answer. Why do the agencies even exist? We could have some interpol-style agreement between states for crimes having national scope, it really doesn’t have to be a big organization at all, just something to assist the states with policing tasks. Eliminate the agencies and get rid of the moral hazard for them to go rogue.

As for the rest of it, we know that the Clinton paid to have Steele’s Russian contacts paid for whatever they could come up with. Blaming the Russian government for this fishing expedition is more than a bit indirect. It’s like blaming DJT’s crude language on Chuck Schumer’s inaccurate summary.

Yes, Seth Rich and Imran Awan. Plus Huma’s Weiner with all his child porn that was supposedly sooo bad that veteran detectives could not stand it. The list goes on and on.

I know it can’t all be tied in, but oh, oh please, even some of it would be nice. So much pure evil. I just can’t understand how so many people are willing to excuse it or look away for political purposes.

“Confessions of a D.C. Madam: The Politics of Sex, Lies, and Blackmail” – “A firsthand account of how public officials and other well-connected individuals have been compromised or blackmailed by their sexual improprieties…….”